Hi all,

I've been trying to find out information on the history / background of the Iron Warriors. I've seen the wiki page and read Storm of Iron and I'm currently half way through Dead Sky..

Now I've got a couple questions that have come up during the course of my initial investigations -

1 - Honsou - Mixed Imperial Fists gene seed, ok where did this come from and why? Or is it explained at the end of Dead Sky?

2 - Imperial Fists / IW's hatred - Why?

From their point of view -

The fact that we held lots of fortresses and bled them dry when they tried to take them? Iron cage incident?

From our point of view -

Undervalued compared to their lap dog tendencies by the emperor
chosen over us to build the palace

Is there additional information on the fluff that should be read by any keen new IW convert?

1. Not explained as far as I know.

2. Both Imperial Fists and Iron Warriors were known for their seige warfare, naturally, the paranoid Peturabo wanted to prove his Legion was the best when they turned. Hence the Iron Cage. We trapped the yellow :curse: s and would've killed them all, if it wasn't for the Ultramarines. It basicaly started as a petty thing, Peturabo wanted to be the best at Seige, and tryed to destroy the Imperial Fists to prove it.

1. We got the geneseed from the Iron Cage battle. The IWs killed over 400 IF marines and collected their geneseed. Some of it was offered to the gods, but I assume some was used to create marines.

2. Pre heresy the IWs and IFs always hated each other. Both were seige troops. The IWs always got stupid garrison and detail missions while the IFs got to build the Emperor's palace. The IFs were(are) glory boys who take credit for everything, and were basically suck ups. The IWs... not so much. So the IFs were portrayed as these wonderful super troopers while the IWs were neglected.

This also touches base on why the IWs went traitor. We didn't really worship the chaos gods like the others. We were... neglected. 10 IWs held a base on a hostile planet with a population in the high millions(can't remember exact #). Our Legion was split up and we had stupid garrison missions instead of missions of importance. When we did do something great others took the credit. Perturabo himself calculated how to avoid enemy air defenses on one planet but other Primarchs took all the credit for the victory even though without Perturabo they would have never made land fall. The list goes on.

The Iron Cage was also very well planned out. Perturabo played Dorn for a fool and it worked. The IWs had bases all over the place in Imperial space after the Heresy. They were like a thorn in the Imperium's side and the Ultras as the strongest Legion at the time were the main ones having to remove the thorn. The IW home world, Olympia was one of the biggest thorns and the IWs fought to the very last man before detonating underground stockpiles and turning the planet into a wasteland, not to mention taking their enemies with them. Well Perturabo took control of a world and built a large fortification on it. Unknown to his enemies the fort was a lure. The real base was under the ground, built in the shape of an 8 pointed star stretching in all directions. If the Imperium threw the actual amount of forces at it that was needed Perturabo would have been defeated. However Perturabo made sure Dorn was the first to find out about the fortress and made sure Dorn knew he would be there himself(Perturabo that is). Dorn's pride and hate of the IWs led him to take on the planet with just the IFs and no help. The IFs landed and began to attack the fortress. Thats when the real fortress was revealed as towers shot up out of the ground behind the IFs lines, with turrets and hidden tunnels. The IF legion was caught in the crossfire, their tanks destroyed, and their forces disorganized. The IWs slowly picked them off. The IF marines that were left used their fallen comrades for cover. Dorn wanted to fight Perturabo right there and then. Perturabo opted to sit back and watch as the IF legion was decimated. Then finally the Ultramarines came to the rescue.

On another note I hate Honsue. I don't care how good he is... a marine with IF geneseed would not reach captain, let alone Warsmith. I'm sorry but Forrix would have been a better choice by far. Not to mention Honsue's men should likely want to kill him themselves, and lets not forget the other Grand Companies. In DSBS he is on Medrengard, where is the first grand company in all this, because I highly doubt they would like Honsue very much.


If you want something else to read I would recommend our Index Astartes article if you can find it. It has the Iron Cage story and most of our really deep fluff in it. I have a copy somewhere, and I use to have a computer file version but I have completely reformatted my computer since then.

I have a question as well, How are new Iron Warriors recruited, and do they have half Imperial Fist Geneseed like Honsou? Or is Honsou the only one like that?

Thanks Ironwinds, I'll have a look around for that article.

Yeah, that's also a question I ask myself; Why the half-breed Honsou? <_<

Anyhow, as I am also a bit new to Iron Warriors -relax, I played Black Templars before going iron- and the information you gave, Ironwinds, kinda ties some loose ends in my Iron Warriors history/background.

You two Warsmiths don't know why Honsou was chosen over Kronger and Forrix? Honsou has what his comrades lacked: they lacked the motivation to see Horus' plan to have humanity set free from the False Emperor's rule and have humanity embrace the powers ov Chaos.

Honsou is ok to be a warsmith because his body is pure by the warp deamon .

yeah, that and the fact that he's the only one to survive kinda puts him in charge.
As far as him being a half breed let the damn loyalists worry about "purity" and all that crap. Honsou can handel a war host and he wins battles, Iron Warriors are the ultimate in function over form. if it aint pretty but it works then it's good enough. that doesn't mean that a half breed shouldn't be given a hard time and put through hell every day, but once they prove themselves all that matters is victory. "Victory needs no excuse, Failure allows none"

back on topic, do you think that one of the upcoming Horus Heresy books will focus on our beloved legion? I hope so.

With the Iron Cage as main event. By Perturabo, that would be so lovely to read how the Iron Warriors systematically obliterated Imperial Fists! :pwned

Honsou's answer to that is mentioned in Dead Sky Black Sun.

I think they have plain, generic Gene Seed, or actual Iron Warrior Gene Seed.

Oh thanks! I just have to get my hands on Dead Sky Black Sun, I really hope they have the Iron Warrior Gene Seed. :)

They do use Iron Warrior geneseed, although they extract it in a rather -well, how shall I put it- Khornate way.

I don't want to post spoilers out in public, so you either have to find out the usual way, i.e. reading Dead Sky Black Sun, or pm me for further details if you want to know right away.

-Loki

Edit: By the way, I heard someone mentioned Iron Warriors had a Slaanesh affection in some old fluff. Does anyone know more about it?

Back in the old days all the legions were attached to one of the gods, it got axed when they made the index astartes series with each legion getting their own fluff.

I'll just wait until I find the book :) thanks though.

I would like to read a book about it, but I doubt it would be in the HH books because it was a good time after the Heresy. However I hope after they finish the HH series they do move onto a lot of the events that happened afterwards. Like how each primarch either died, turned into a prince, or went missing.

You can also get new marines from several sources.
1. IW geneseed
2. Stolen geneseed
3. Fabius Bile's experiments
4. Mutants who get big enough to effectively be marines. Imagine a big mutant in power armor who is really trained by the marines to know what he is doing. That would be a pretty nice statline, pretty much what a marine should be.

Finally on the Honsue note I just don't like him. Its not just the IF geneseed but he is nothing of what I think an IW should be. Methodical... no, calculating... not really, bitter & twisted... yea but about the wrong things, unemotional... close but not close enough, cross trained by the mechanicus... obviously no. Forrix on the other hand, yea he obviously has those traits. The battle where they use the POWs to test the rang of the enemy guns, and demoralize the enemy at the same time... yea that was sick and methodical, that was bitter and twisted. Hunting the enemy in the tunnels... knowing exactly what the termy armor could handle and not in the tunnels, knowing what the enemy was going to do before they did it, knowing how to bring down a warhound so easily, that was an Iron Warrior. Honsue was also a sissy in my mind. Always worried about what everyone thought of him, pursuing petty arguments with a bezerker, always trying to prove he wasn't a sissy. Prideful, and a suck up... yea an Imperial Fist. Sorry for my rant about Honsue, but I want to read a book where the main character is sick and methodical, who doesn't really care what others think of him as long as he gets his job done.

I really need to start reading some IW related books. o_O

But I want my CRF50...

In Addition to the methods that were already mentioned I know the following:

If I remember correctly, it is said in the old codex chaos (2nd Edition ?) that the traitorlegions take slaves on their raids on the empire, drill them, and if they turn out promising, start to transplant organs and stuff in order turn them into space marines. However, it's said that most aspirants die during the procedure.

In the last codex chaos space marines (the one we all will miss forever) there is a short story that indicates that the legions also adopt promising chaos cultists into their ranks.

by the way, this was my first post in this forum - so, hi all!

I don't know if this is off-topic but since it has do do with IW background, I'll post it here anyway. :unsure:

A full space marine legion consisted of 10.000 marines, and every Company held 1.000 marines, which became the now known Chapters after the Loyalists Second Founding, and those Chapters became devided into 10 "Battle Companies" housing 100 marines each. Following these "guidelines", I think the Chaos Legions are build up in the same manner, only that our "chapters" still remain as the Companies dating back from the very beginning of the Adeptus Astartes Legions, but this type of organisation varies from legion to legion. Keeping in mind that since the Horus Heresy the 45th Grand Company expanded their ranks with Renegades and other Chaos marines, here's how I envision my 45th Grand Company:

The 45th Grand Company consists approximately 1.500 Iron Warriors, and is divided in 3 sub-companies, holding 500 chaos marines each, consisting of the Veteran Company -45th Ferrum Vetus-, the Assault Company -45th Ferrum Mortis- and the Siege Company -45th Ferrum Odrinati-.

The Veteran Company, led by Warsmith Lord Malach Cerberus himself, includes the greatest and oldest Iron Warriors of the 45th Grand Company, those who have fought in the legion before the Horus Heresy. They are the true titans of Olympia, and their wisdom and knowledge is widely used in the ranks of the other sub-companies. The Veteran Company also includes the Grand Company's Dreadnoughts and the veterans commonly use ancient suits of tactical dreadnought armour. Lieutenant Hades and Goliath are detached to this company, and are seconded to the Assault and Siege sub-companies, lending them their knowledge. Cerberus' bodyguard originates from this company as well.

The Assault Company, led by Lieutenant Arcas Hades, includes the younger Iron Warriors of the 45th Grand Company, in addition to the "newcomers", Renegade and Chaos Marines who fill the ranks of the 45th now and then, and are the infantry section of the Grand Company, fierce close combat specialists which are often atracted to the Lord of Skulls, Khorne.

The Siege Company, Led by Lieutenant Ephistos Goliath, form the backbone of the 45th Grand Company. Here, all the armour, together with the deadly precise Havoc squads, fill the ranks of this sub-company. They excel in siege warfare, and they are the ones who hate the Imperial Fist Chapter most. Their tactics and engineering in siege warfare are unmatched, and smite their foes on their concrete anvils with the might of their ordinance.

Do my fellow Warsmiths agree, or am I going to be exciled for this? :lol:

I like it atually and have a similar organisation for my Great Company, the 9th.

My 44th grand company is also very similar in orginisation however with considerably fewer battle brothers (around 600) I'm somwhat embarassed to say most of my force is made up of lesser mortals I try to make up for this deficit by utilizing a very high number of vehicles, artillary, and titans. the good news is that mere humans are much easier to replace than astartes warriors.

It's scary to see how many of us have the same ideas on their grand companies structure.

1st veteran: only terminator sqauds ( the heavy hitters in cc )
2nd battle/siege company: lots of havocs, dreadnoughts, obliterators, rhino born csm sqauds ( these guys provide firesupport either long-ranged or close firefights )
3rd assault: lots of csm with flamers and meltaguns, cc havoc sqauds, cc chosen and some berzerkers as well ( these are the storming units should the enemy fortress be breached )
4th recon/battle: only csm on foot, no vehicles and just a few heavy weapons

Heh, imagine if we all lived close enough to join our armies together, screw the black crusade, our silver and gold crusade would be unstoppable!

Considering the Black crusade seems to be stalled by any defended fortress larger than 4 metres square, no matter how many marines Abaddononon gets :P that wouldnt be that hard for us to accomplish ^_^
oh and it would be Silver, gold, with chevron trim, Crusade. doesnt have the same ring to it as Black Crusade, does it...

Let's just call it an iron crusade, just better.

But I think this thread is starting to get seriously derailed.

This fits into background I think and is better than starting a new thread, right? <_<

I was wondering if there was any Legion that the Iron Warriors got along with during the Crusade? We all know they disliked the Imperial Fists and were generally cold to pretty much anyone not an Iron Warrior. But were there any Legions that they campaigned with and at least gained a shred of their respect? Or perhaps not as unpleasent a scowl?

The reason I ask is A: Curiosity and B: I was going to use the BoLS Horus Heresy Campaign setup to try to have a fun mini campaign between me and some gamer buddies.

the iron warriors worked with the alpha legion and night lords during the Istvann IV massacre but I think that was just because they happened to land in the same area, not so much that they were friends, I also remember reading somewhere that IW and world eaters worked together to breach the emporer's palace on terra, but they may have just been trying to do the same thing at the same time so it looked like cooperation. and there are plenty of examples of IW detachments supporting black legion troops.
IW forces tend to not be very trusting and open but I believe they are very pragmatic, if the IW need to get a job done I believe they would use any weapon they could get including other legions. also being chaos undivided, they wouldn't have too much trouble working with anyone. kind of like mercinaries, offer an IW lord what he wants and he probobly wouldn't mind knocking down a wall or two for you.

Yeah that's what I'd been gathering, that most the time it's not some much that they want to fight with anyone at their side but rather that they can if it suits them to do so.

I was reading an article on wikipedia on about the iron warriors attack on the "heritic world" of justic rock during the grand crusade. A quick search round and I found a reference to the "black judges".

Does any one know any of the details of the campain and more specificly the planet and the so called "black judges"

thanks

I know it was during the Crusade and was their first big campaign in a nearby sector? I remember reading that afterwords they had a huge feast in honour of their victory...probably the last time anyone saw the Iron Warriors smile. :P

*And now, with my necromancer-skills, I hereby resurrect this thread to the living!*

Erhm, actually, I wanted to know where I can read the fluff about Iron Warriors attacking Tallarn and turn it from a tropical paradise -eh, death world- to a desolated desert world...

I think it was a sentence in the last codex. P.5 "At Tallarn, the Iron Warriors bombed the verdant paradise world, stripping its surface to the arid poisonous wasteland it is today". I don't think it is mentioned elsewhere.